After six months of war, what have US, Iran gained and lost?

When the US and Israel shocked the world by launching missile strikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a number of senior Iranian office-holders in Tehran, as well as scores of children in a school in Minab, southern Iran.

Key points

• Iran has hit infrastructure in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain.
• As well as tens of thousands of injuries, and it has resulted in an estimated 8, 000-10, 000 deaths.
• But Iranian expert and professor at the Australian National University (ANU), Alam Saleh, disagreed, and observed that Iran's nuclear power programme is still intact.
• Clark Summers, a US military veteran and professor at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, remarked the US can rightly assert that these ends have been achieved.
• Iran's political leadership has, nevertheless, remained largely the same under the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – the late ayatollah's son.

US President Donald Trump then asserted the conflict would only last "four to five weeks".

In the months since, the war has erupted on a number of other fronts, reaching as far as the Caspian Sea. It has triggered a global oil supply crisis as the US and Iran battle for control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which more than one-fifth of oil and natural gas cargo transited.

As new alliances form and dominant ones show signs of crumbling, the conflict is additionally realigning the global order, experts say. Here's what we know. Has the US achieved any of its war objectives?

For context, the US's goals were not initially clear: authorities first maintained the strikes were carried out in preemptive self-defence.

According to demands presented on the eve of the war, and a jumble of sometimes contradictory statements from Trump and senior US defence authorities, they include the after.

Despite Trump's claim that the US had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capabilities when it joined in at the end of Israel's 12-day war on Iran in June 2025, the US and Israel again asserted in February that Tehran was just weeks away from developing nuclear weapons.

Repeated strikes on Iran's nuclear sites during the war have probable caused vast damage to the facilities, but it is believed Tehran still possesses 440kg of highly enriched uranium. It could be employed to create a weapon.

In practice, the Trump administration wanted Iran to hand over this stock to the US and to commit to zero enrichment of uranium going forward. Although at one point appeared open to the possibility of handing the stock over to a third country, iran refused to do this. Iran additionally insisted on retaining the capacity to develop a nuclear power programme. It requires much lower levels of uranium enrichment.

Afterwards, Trump briefly floated the idea of US troops retrieving the stock by force – a potentially dangerous mission.

In the June 17 memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by both sides, Iran agreed not to pursue a nuclear weapon – something it had always pledged anyway. The MoU unravelled as its vague wording led to disagreements regarding what it actually stipulated.

Clark Summers, a US military veteran and professor at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, remarked the US "can rightly assert that these ends have been achieved. Although for how long before Iran can rebuild is tough to assess."

But Iranian expert and professor at the Australian National University (ANU), Alam Saleh, disagreed, and observed that Iran's nuclear power programme is still intact. "The US lost even before the war, " he remarked, adding that the effort additionally demonstrates that Washington failed in last year's 12-day war. Regime change in Iran.

On day one of the war – February 28 – the US killed Khamenei alongside a number of other senior office-holders. Trump, two days earlier, remarked regime change is "the best thing that could happen".

As the US introduced missiles, he additionally called on "Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country".

Summers informed Al Jazeera that the goal may have been "ad hoc" or improvised rather than well-planned. But "killing leaders does not mean strategic achievements, even if it's a tactical success, " Saleh remarked. Ending backing for regional proxy groups.

Iran's "axis of resistance" is an umbrella comprising a number of armed groups around the region that it funds. This includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and a number of smaller groups in Iraq and Syria.

There are no signs that Tehran's backing for them has concluded, and this demand did not appear in the MoU signed by the US.

Hezbollah went to war with Israel in Iran's defence, and Iran has refused to negotiate an end to the war unless the Lebanon front is included. The Houthis, meanwhile, have introduced a blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, partly in backing of Iran. Iran's ballistic missiles programme.

Washington swore it would "raze" Iran's missile facilities to the ground when it introduced the war on February 28. The US additionally pledged to destroy Iran's navy.

Trump has since asserted that concerning 82 percent of Iran's missiles are gone and the navy is degraded.

While US Central Command (CENTCOM) has continued to announce dozens of strikes on command centres of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in April, he additionally stated that 158 Iranian naval vessels had been hit.

Iran, nevertheless, has continued to fire missiles, most lately launching a long-range missile in July that killed three US soldiers in Jordan.

Furthermore, the demand for an end to Iran's ballistic missiles programme was additionally absent from the July MoU. Control of Iranian oil.

In June, Trump remarked the US would seize and control Iran's Kharg island, the heart of Iranian oil production. To date, the US does not control any Iranian territory.

What have the US and Iran gained and lost during the war?

Besides the US demands at the start of the war, a number of other pressure points have emerged during the conflict. Control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Shortly after the war began, Iran in effect closed the narrow but critical Strait of Hormuz. It passes through its territorial waters as well as those of Oman. Since then, shipping traffic has slumped from more than 100 ships per day to an average of regarding five.

To enforce this closure, Iran began striking vessels in the strait, the only route to the open ocean for Gulf oil and gas producers. It had not gained its explicit permission to pass through.

Meanwhile, the US responded with its own naval blockade on Iranian ports in and around the strait. This is continuing.

Despite plenty of expletive-laden demands from Trump since then – numerous of them on social media – that Tehran reopen the strait, Iran has not budged. It is at present negotiating aims for the future of the waterway, through which more than one-fifth of the world's oil and natural gas supplies were shipped before the war, with Oman.

As part of these negotiations, Iran confirmed this week that it has agreed to a shipping route. It it will partially control, with Oman.

While Trump has lately maintained that the US has "full control" of the strait and that it is open to vessels, shipping remains at an all-time low and Iran has continued to fire at any vessels trying to pass without its permission.

Iran sees the strait as its main piece of leverage in the war with the US. It salah remarked, Iran views as an "existential threat".

Iran: The war's impact on Iran's economy has been severe. The Iranian rial has in effect collapsed. Food rates have surged against the backdrop of the war, and the US blockade and renewed sanctions have hampered Iranian oil exports, with the blockade cutting oil revenue by at least $6bn. Although the fragile ceasefire provided temporary relief, tehran's economy has long been battered by US sanctions. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi remarked last week that economic pressure is a "rerun we know by heart" and that the country knows how to survive it.

US: US consumers have additionally felt the pressure of the war at the petrol pump, making the conflict highly unpopular. A July poll by The Associated Press made public that two-thirds of Americans are against the conflict. While plenty of tend to forget there's a war, Summers stated, they do remember it acutely when petrol rates rise. In states like California, gasoline rates doubled. That anger will probable translate into a political backlash against Republicans in November's midterms, experts say.

Iran: Iran's targeting of US military assets as well as both military and nonmilitary infrastructure in neighbouring Gulf states and Jordan has not created it popular regionally, experts note. Iran has hit infrastructure in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. Those states have called this a violation of their sovereignty. As Beijing has managed a delicate dance by advocating against sanctions on Iran while refraining from becoming fully entangled in the conflict, nevertheless, Iran's economic and political ties with China have held. Trade relations with Russia additionally remain robust.

US: The US has faced reluctance from its NATO allies to back it up in this war. Despite being asked directly by Trump, they have refused to join the war. While Germany, Israel's strongest ally in Europe, has done the same, spain and Italy, in particular, have highly criticised the conflict. France rejected calls to send warships to enforce the blockade. While in Asia, Japan, Australia and South Korea all declined to obtain involved, gulf allies, Pakistan and Turkiye have all similarly refused. Gulf allies are additionally probable weighing the fact that it is the US's war on Iran which has caused them to become targets.

For now, after six months of war, what have US, Iran gained and lost? Remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.